


Permanent Marks

by sophinisba



Category: Lost
Genre: Character Study, Character of Color, Gen, Muslim Character, Non-Graphic Violence, Tattoos, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-18
Updated: 2007-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-05 22:06:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sayid looks at Charlie's tattoos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Permanent Marks

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Aprilkat for the prompt (Sayid, Charlie, tattoos) and to claudia603 for a very helpful beta. Takes place early in season 1 but uses some character information from later.

Sayid started evaluating each one's potential for good leadership or disaster from the very first day – from the first minutes, even, when they were still dashing around, trying to save each other from the pieces of the aircraft falling and exploding around them.

"It's like a war zone around here," Charlie said. Sayid ignored him and so did everyone else. He came to notice that that happened quite a lot, as Charlie was one to sing songs, make jokes and tell stories without bothering to ask whether anyone wanted to hear them. He was one to take off his shirt whether or not he was really hot, just hoping someone would notice his muscles or his sweat or his tattoo.

Sayid liked Charlie from the start, despite the arrogance he could barely help having as a white man from a peaceful country. He liked him as he liked Boone and Hurley, although he wouldn't be demonstrably friendlier toward them than toward the others. Charlie was small but he _was_ stronger than he looked at first glance, and agile too, and certainly he was eager to help. And he might talk too much, but he didn't often lie. When he did, he was quite easy to read – twitching, lowering his eyes, scratching his nose. He may have a few secrets, but he was a help to the rest of them rather than a threat.

Sayid worried more about the quiet ones – the ones who never told you anything about themselves but thought they could give other people orders. He didn't know if Jack or Locke had ever been in the military, but he knew they reminded him of officers he'd known in too many armies, and why he'd always disliked the military. They also reminded him of himself. Sayid probably made everyone else nervous as well.

Which wasn't to say that they were quite the same – Locke would sit by himself or with one other person, quiet, while Jack and Sayid were more the kind to sit with a group but keep silent, letting someone like Charlie do most of the talking. For Sayid, this meant quiet observation and learning more about the others, but Jack appeared distracted, as if he were physically present with them in order to be social but could not actually bother to pay attention to what was being said.

Charlie, for his part, seemed happiest at times like tonight, when he was sitting with a group – Hurley, Boone, Jack, and Sayid, at the moment, sitting around the fire where they'd cooked the fish – and talking about himself.

"I'd been wanting to get it for a long time, but I just didn't like any of the places where they do it," he was saying. "These tattoo artists have crap taste in music – you know how that is. A lot of Metallica and Sepultura, like that's supposed to help you withstand the pain! So I said, look, I'm not getting the poetry of John Lennon tattooed on my arm while listening to this shite. Play either the Beatles or Driveshaft, or I'll take my business elsewhere."

Boone was the only one to look impressed. Sayid thought that Boone must be easily impressed, or perhaps it was simply the way his eyebrows worked. "Would they even have a copy of that around though?"

"Not a problem," said Charlie, "I brought the CDs with me. I went with _Magical Mystery Tour_ in the end, just seemed more appropriate, you know."

"Cool," said Boone. "So how long did it take?"

"About an hour. Didn't hurt too much either. We're pretty tough, we Mancunians."

Boone nodded, though Sayid wasn't sure whether he'd understood the word.

"Bet yours took a lot longer than that, huh, Jack? What are those, Chinese?"

It had only been days, but Sayid noticed that Charlie had already learned to make his questions less direct, easier to avoid. Not _Where did you get it and why, and what does it mean?_ but simply, _Is it Chinese?_, allowing Jack to answer, "Yeah," and let the subject drop, although not without some awkwardness.

After a short silence Boone started talking about the tattoo he'd been thinking about getting but hadn't gone through with yet. Sayid got up to stretch his legs. As long as he was sitting here he didn't seem to be able to stop staring at the characters on Jack's arm.

Charlie's and Jack's tattoos reminded him of those of many of the American soldiers, nothing like the small traditional markings he'd been used to seeing before the war. In Australia he'd seen much worse, young men who'd walk along the beach or the street, their entire bodies covered in swirls or green and red and black, dragons and fire, Asian writing and naked blonde women. He'd never got used to the sight, but he'd learned to hide the repulsion he felt. He just didn't like staring at it for very long.

Sayid's father had taught him that tattoos might be good enough for peasants and foreigners and criminals, but not for their family or friends. It was true they'd come from a small village where many of the old women wore them – marks of tribe and affiliation, wards against malevolent spirits, traditions of their people since before the time of the Prophet. Saddam himself had a protective glyph on his hand. It happened, but it wasn't allowed, in the country or in the faith. "Mutilation," Sayid's father had said. "It is haram to alter what Allah has created."

Sayid learned a lot about mutilation in the military prison. He discussed interrogation techniques with his fellows, although questions of morality didn't often come up. Some thought it was important not to leave permanent marks; it wasn't good to leave evidence, more excuses for the Westerners to condemn them, call them barbaric. The same people said quietly that Saddam should not have gassed the villages in the north – not because it was wrong to massacre innocent people, but because it might weaken the country's position abroad.

Most of them agreed though that leaving marks was all right. If the Americans came back someday it would be because of oil as it was the last time, not because of a missing Kurdish village and certainly not because of a few burns or scars or missing digits on some criminals.

"But we don't know whether these people are criminals," said Sayid. "They have not been judged, they may have done nothing wrong."

"That's not up to you to decide," said Omar, who had more experience, rank, and certainty. "Your job is to obtain information. Question the prisoners, not your superiors."

Several times the prisoners got hold of some ink and needles and marked each other before the interrogators could mark them.

One man had tattooed the name of Allah on his back. "You would not desecrate this, would you?" he pretended righteous anger and invulnerability even as he shook with fear. Sayid proceeded almost as he would have with any other, only avoiding that small area of the skin. The man was shot a few days later.

Sayid heard of another prisoner who tattooed Saddam's face on his arm in a variation on the same strategy. That one lived.

Some of the prisoners were truly devout and others only went through the motions of prayer and repentance for the sake of appearances. Some were Sunni and more were Shiite. Some were rebels and others faithful to the regime. Sayid tried to follow Omar's advice: it wasn't for him to judge, only to follow orders and obtain information. But he never forgot about the differences between them.

All those divisions stopped being important once he left Iraq. As far as the Americans and the French and the Australians were concerned there was no difference between one Arab and another or, for that matter, between one brown-skinned man and any other. Sayid became accustomed to nervous glances on the metro, jobs refused without explanation, conversations in the restaurant that went quiet as soon as he approached. Getting angry about it only tended to make them more suspicious, he'd learned – brought on talk about Islamic militancy. He got good at keeping his face and his voice smooth, keeping his anger inside.

The Western intelligence officers were, in his experience, a bit more sophisticated than the general public in that they conceived of two categories of Arabs: the actual terrorists and the ones who could be used as tools to ensnare the terrorists. Neither category had to be treated as actual human beings.

He still hadn't figured out whether it would be any different here on the island, but it occurred to him tonight, though certainly not for the first time, that the men sitting around the fire and the other survivors spread across the beach would have more of a chance of seeing Sayid as a person if he would open up to them. Tell a few stories, like Charlie, maybe even a few jokes. He didn't need to talk about the war, or the torture, or Nadia. He could keep his secrets, as Charlie and Boone and Hurley surely kept theirs, but say _something_ – apart from technical advice on electronics and fires – to let them know they could trust him.

The problem was, he couldn't think of any stories from his life that were like Charlie's, entertaining and nothing more. There wasn't any experience that stung for an hour and afterwards looked and felt good. He carried marks – permanent ones, inside and out – but they weren't the kind of thing he could show off. None of it made him feel proud.

Sayid came back to the group at the fire just as Jack stood up and announced he was heading off to sleep. There was an uneasy pause, as if the others might give up and go back alone to their own makeshift shelters, but they'd prefer to stay together and keep talking. Sayid sat down on the sand. "So," he said, smiling, "tell me about Manchester." Charlie grinned.


End file.
